Some communication systems utilize a signal forwarding device, such as a repeater station, relay station or a self-backhauled station to facilitate the transfer of information between user equipment (UE) devices and a core network. The signal forwarding device is typically not connected directly to the core network but still provides service to the UE devices by forwarding information to and from the UE devices and a base station which is connected to the core network. Where the signal forwarding device is a repeater, the repeater simply retransmits downlink signals received from another base station to the UE device and retransmits uplink signals received from the UE device to the other base station. Although the repeater may apply limited signal processing to the incoming signal such as filtering, frequency shifting, and amplification, a repeater will not decode the incoming signal that is to be forwarded. Relay stations and self-backhaul stations perform at least some signal processing before retransmitting the information. Such processing can vary from partial decoding to complete decoding of the incoming signal. For example, the incoming signal can be completely decoded and used to generate a new signal or the incoming signal may not be completely decoded but still used to transmit the forwarded outgoing signal. Some of the various levels of processing (forwarding techniques) are sometimes referred to as amplify and forward (AF), partial decoding and forward (PDF) and decode and forward (DF) schemes.